Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 2.pdf/96

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1602. Middleton, Blurt, I., i. [Tricks, tricks, kerry merry buff!]

1775. Cont. Sterne's Sent. Jour., 219. That every convivial assistant should go home cherry-merry.

2. subs. (Anglo-Indian).—A present of money. Cherry-merry-bamboo, a beating.

Cherry-Pickers, subs. (military).—See Cherubims.

Cherry-Pie, subs. (common).—A girl. [Possibly only an amplification of cherry (q.v.).] For synonyms, see Titter.

Cherry-Pipe, subs. (rhyming slang).—A woman, the 'rhyme' being with 'ripe,' from cherry-ripe (q.v.). For synonyms, see Petticoat.

Cherry-Ripe, subs. (thieves').—1. A woman. Cf., Cherry = a young girl. For synonyms, see Petticoat.

2. (old).—A 'redbreast' or Bow Street Runner. [So called from the scarlet waistcoat which formed part of the uniform.]

3. (common).—A footman in red plush.

4. (rhyming slang).—A pipe.

Cherubims, vulgo, Cherry-bums, subs. (military).—1. The Eleventh Hussars. [From their crimson overalls.] Also cherry-breeches and cherry-pickers.

1865. Notes and Queries, 3 S., vii., p. 49. 11th Hussars—Cherubims and Cherry Pickers, having had some men taken while on out-post duty in a fruit garden in Spain.

1871. Forbes, Exper. War between France and Germany, II., 149. When [Lord Cardigan] commanded the Cherry-breeches there were generally more sore backs among them than in any other regiment in the service.

1871. Chambers' Journal, Dec. 23, p. 802. The 11th Hussars, the 'Cherubims and Cherry Pickers.'

2. (common).—Peevish children. [A facetious allusion to a passage in the Te Deum—'To Thee cherubin and seraphin continually do cry.'] Quoted by Grose [1785].

3. (common).—Chorister boys. [Either founded on the allusion quoted in sense 2, or in reference to the fact that little more than the heads of choristers is visible to the general congregation.]

To be in the cherubims, phr. (old).—To be in good humour; in the clouds; unsubstantial; fanciful.

1542. Udal, Erasmus's Apophth., p. 139. Diogenes mocking such quidificall trifles, that were al in the cherubins, said, Sir Plato, your table and your cuppe I see very well, but as for your tabletee and your cupitee I see none soche.

Cheshire Cat. To grin like a Cheshire cat [chewing gravel, eating cheese, or evacuating bones, is sometimes added], phr. (common).—To laugh broadly—to 'laugh all over one's face.' Used disparagingly. [Origin unknown.]

1782. Wolcot ('P. Pindar'), Pair of Lyric Epistles, in wks. (Dublin, 1795), vol. II., p. 424. Lo, like a Cheshire cat our Court will grin!

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.

1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, ch. xxiv. In fact, Mr. Newcome says to Mr. Pendennis, in his droll, humourous way, 'that woman grins like a Cheshire cat!' Who was the naturalist who first discovered that peculiarity of the cats in Cheshire?

1859. Letter from Edward S. Taylor to John Camden Hotten, 22 Dec.